


the kind of flood you'll never forget

by secretsarenotforfree



Category: Hart of Dixie
Genre: 1x09 Introspective, Angst Flavored, F/M, Please Save Him From Emotions, Why? Ft. Feelings, hopeless boy, no it literally is, that's the summary of this fic, wade did not ask for any of this
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-03-14
Updated: 2021-03-14
Packaged: 2021-03-21 21:15:08
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,194
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/30027963
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/secretsarenotforfree/pseuds/secretsarenotforfree
Summary: Wade Kinsella does not do feelings. He is not a club member at Moony Eyes Anonymous, he has no interest in love songs suddenly making sense. (He thinks he’s got a pretty good grasp on some sort of concept Bohemian Rhapsody was going for and that’s a bar he’s content to never reach above.) He’s been perfectly happy lovin’ and leaving them for almost 30 years and, to be as clear as possible, did not ask for any of this.
Relationships: Zoe Hart/Wade Kinsella
Comments: 5
Kudos: 9





	the kind of flood you'll never forget

**Author's Note:**

> this slapped me out of nowhere so i slapped it back onto the paper in an hour and here we are?
> 
> set in 1.09! poor baby. i love pirates.
> 
> title from 'storm warning' by hunter hayes

His heart is in his throat the whole time.

It chokes him, swelling up, tremoring in his fingers when he slips into the front seat of his Chevy and turns the key. Wade sits there for a moment, both hands on the wheel, and leans his forehead on his wrists, taking a fortifying breath, and then follows it with a disbelieving scoffing sort of chuckle right afterwards. Because this whole situation is _batshit_ . It’s miles from sane. How the hell is the thought of opening his mouth and saying something along the likes of three piddly words - _I like you_ \- shaking him up more than any other interaction he’d had with a girl, ever. 

He’d _married_ Tansy and he’d never felt about her the way he feels about Zoe. Even more proof that Wade liked his mistakes about as much as he enjoyed making them, whether or not he had any business doing them. 

Wade’s shoulders are still warm from his vaguely irritated trek from Lavon’s back to his own place, the midday Alabama sun strong and sticking to the faded red of his flannel. The mayors stupid words still ring in his head, a lot of mumbo jumbo along the lines of the romantic comedies she occasionally forced Lavon into watching that Wade would only happen to walk in and join on. It brought him ridiculous amounts of pleasure to complain about how dumb whichever leads it was were being in the pursuit of a happily ever after, throwing popcorn at the screen while Zoe kicks him and asks why he’s even there and Lavon fist bumps him in silent support, but maybe Wade feels different now. 

Maybe they had bigger balls than he'd thought, with the showing up at the last minute, public confession situation, because he was planning to drop the words like they burned him the moment they arrived at the hanger, and he felt uncomfortably like there was an axe hanging over his neck or something.

Wade Kinsella does not _do_ feelings. He is not a club member at Moony Eyes Anonymous, he has no interest in love songs suddenly making sense. (He thinks he’s got a pretty good grasp on some sort of concept _Bohemian Rhapsody_ was going for and that’s a bar he’s content to never reach above.) He’s been perfectly happy lovin’ and leaving them for almost 30 years and, to be as _clear as possible,_ did not ask for any of this. 

For _her._

There had been no star wishing or coin flipping or universe baiting, so why was this happening to him? _Wade really wanted to freaking know_. Until he got an answer to that damn question, he was stuck with the reality that it was, for all intents and purposes, happening to him. Even if Wade had thought he was doing a pretty good job keeping it under lock and key, so close to the collar that hopefully no one would see.

(A large part of him that was terribly close friends with denial blamed his outing specifically on the fact that after so many years of friendship, on top of living together for the last several, gave Lavon a particular ability to see things in Wade that he sometimes only half knew himself.

Which, to be honest, didn’t make Wade feel any better.)

What was he even supposed to say anyway? The truth, or just part of it? Because his head disconnected from his mouth whenever the full rush of it overwhelmed him and Wade knew it wouldn’t make a lick of sense. Made only half of that lick to him, and he was the one it was _coming_ from.

_You have the prettiest eyes that I’ve ever seen in my entire life._

_Making you laugh is almost always worth feeling like an absolute fool in front of you._

_I like seeing you at breakfast when you’re running late to work because you wear less makeup and I can see your freckles._

_You’re so infuriating that you drive me up a wall and right back down it and I sometimes feel like I can only guess what you’re thinking because as much as you talk there’s so much you don’t say.._

_You’ve only been in town for two months and I don’t like the idea of Bluebell without you in it._

Wade would rather cut off his own foot than say any of those things. No matter how true every damn word of it was. He was doomed. Utterly doomed. And yet something kept him together enough to fill his lungs with fortifying air and get his Chevy in drive. Something drew strength from the hot whoosh of muggy air against his face from his open windows and the bright blinks of settling sun through the trees when he got on the one road to Town Square.

Whatever that something was, it abandons him when Wade asks if they’re going to the airport or not and she flicks her full gaze to him and his stomach absolutely plummets.

She’s stunning. She’s standing there, with her fantastic legs and fantastic heels, looking too good with her hair in the breeze and Wade _remembers_ how that hair felt. He remembers losing his hands in it in the very car he was sat here idling in, the way it caught in his calluses and slid across the back of his fingers and made him never want to let go. He’s spent enough time with her to know exactly how powerful those deep brown stars were going to look like when she was going to be in the passenger seat up close and personal with him, and he knew how one blink of those dark lashes had him thinking that she was so out of his league he could bat a thousand and still get nowhere close.

_Rejection._ That crushing, ugly thing that more than likely lay in his future and would taint their interactions for the rest of time if he finally opened his trap and gave some sort of form to the crazy thing wrapped around all the too vulnerable parts of him since she stomped into his gatehouse without an invitation in sight. 

Yeah. That’s why.

It pounds so loud in the back of his mind that he’s a bit distracted from the mess around him. Brick and George’s concerned conversation, the pull away of the ambulance. It’s none of his business, Wade figures, and he’s got more pressing things to worry about anyway. 

He wracks his brain to throw together a hasty excuse, just in case, and tells himself it can’t possibly go worse than he’s imagining it in his mind. He took care of his dad when Jesse was off doing God knows what with no one else's fault before he even his his teens. He taught himself how to mix drinks from memory when he barely got better than C’s in school. He made it to adulthood with a mom. He’d been through way worse than this.

Still, when Wade mirrors her movements to swing into his car, he gives himself half a moment to strengthen himself. 

  
And he _prays_.


End file.
